


Didn't Bring Me Here to Drown

by ssleif



Series: Sterek SoulMateNess Saves Laura AU [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, Get together fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 21:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17795150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssleif/pseuds/ssleif
Summary: Vingette from an Alive!Laura AU. After The Hale sibs take out peter for the greater good of beacon Hills, Stiles can't deny it any longer. It's got to be Derek.





	Didn't Bring Me Here to Drown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tabbytabbytabby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabbytabbytabby/gifts).



> For the St. Valentines challenge. You asked for fluff, which... I don't know if this counts? There's a bit of Pining, and Definitely Alive!Laura. Actually, trying to work out how I wanted the soulmate thing and Laura to work... I spawned a head canon, I swear, longer than this ficlet. whoops.
> 
> Anyway, long and short of it, I kind of Combined the Shared-soulspace Idea, with that "knowing important dates" idea, but I usually think stuff like that being, like, written on ppl sounds silly, so I made it kind of an internal knowing.
> 
> Hope this works for you! Happy V day, wherever you are!

Stiles goes to Derek, when it’s all done.

He hadn’t been sure that Derek was his his soulmate. He had wondered, he’d maybe even pined a bit. The things he knew his Soulmate had been through matched very neatly to what of Derek’s own timeline he was privvy to… but he hadn’t known.

And so, in the days leading to this moment, he’d chewed his nails and ground his teeth and kept everyone as safe as he could, learned as much as he could, to prepare for whatever the alpha- Peter- was gonna throw at them. And all the while he could feel the clock ticking down, closer and closer to a moment, stiles could feel, that was going to be… well. For his soulmate, this was gonna be a rough one.

He could feel it coming on and, just in case it was Derek, he’d even gone to Laura when he knew Derek would be elsewhere to warn her that he maybe thought… anyway, how do you tactfully say “Hey, Ms. Alpha Werewolf who scares the literal pee out of me, I kind of suspect your brother and I might be destined to be bound together for all eternity and my internal clock is telling me that, if my lustful guess is correct, there’s a strong possibility that something terrible is going to happen to someone he loves in about 20 hours so, like, can you please be careful and don’t die, and also don’t tell him all of this?”

Yeah.

And then they were there, all of them, standing in a clearing, feet from the burned-out shell that has unknowingly haunted Stiles’ nightmares and and soul-scape since he was eleven years old and felt his soulmate’s world shatter.

And there was Derek. And all the family he had left.

Stiles watched, paralyzed, as Derek, tears pouring down his locked-cold face, held Peter’s shoulders down, while Laura slit his throat with a claw.

And as Peter’s eyes dimmed and Laura’s flashed, Stiles felt an Important Moment pass for his soulmate…

And watched Derek’s shoulders start to shake.

The last two Hales picked up the body of the man who had once been their uncle and took off pretty quickly… but Stiles just couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t lose the feeling of that moment.

It had to be Derek.

It was either Derek, or Laura.

But he was pretty sure it was Derek.

He’d felt it, that first moment they’d met in the woods, when he was looking for Scott’s inhaler. When their eyes had met, he felt his soulmate Meet Someone Important. But it could have been coincidence.

This wasn’t coincidence.

This was Derek.

This was his soulmate, hurting.

This was _Derek_. Hurting.

So stiles followed his instincts, and showed up at their motel. (that’s a lie. He went home, showered the blood and dirt off, called several motels and mis-represented himself, left a bald-faced-falsehood of a note for his dad, got into his jeep, stopped at the grocery for tea and slice-and-bake cookies, had a small panic attack in line, got his purchases back in his jeep, and _then_ showed up at their motel.)

Derek was sitting on the hood of the camero, leaning back against the windshield, looking up at the stars.

And the moon.

He was in clean clothes, hair glinting a little damply in the moon-and-pollution-light, and, when Stiles parked and got out, he found that Derek also smelled strongly of deodorant and body wash. He wondered about that for a moment, since with the enhanced smell, that was all pretty overpowering? Maybe?

But then he remembered the copper-sweet smell of all the blood on the grass just a few hours before, and gladly took another whiff of clean-bath-product-car-boy.

He didn’t move as Stiles approached with his little shopping bag, and Stiles took that as permission. There was enough space, just, for another person on the driver’s side of the windshield, so Stiles set the bag down and, when there _still_ was no objection, boosted himself up.

Derek obligingly scooted over a little further, and then settled, still saying nothing.

Stiles leaned back.

In the moments that followed, he picked out a distant sound of cars on the road, a fainter rustle of trees from the end of the parking lot. He could hear muffled television in a couple of the motel rooms, and he could hear water, just faintly, through the cracked door nearest them, where he assumed Laura was likely cleaning up for the evening.

And he could hear Derek Breathing.

Slowly, he seemed to relax, and Stiles could feel the stiffness draining from the arm and leg pressed pretty close up against his right side .

For a few moments, he thought he could detect a little bit of labor, breaths coming a little faster, maybe a little choked through a tightened larynx… but that settled out too.

And they watched the moon, slowly cross the sky.

Eventually, Stiles heard the water shut off. After a few more moments, he heard the click of the bathroom handle, and then the slide of the front door opening all the way.

He titled his head a little bit. Derek did not.

Laura smiled at them, a twisted, tired, half-formed grimace, but nodded her head towards the lobby.

“I’m going to do a load of laundry. The door is unlocked, if you boys need anything.”

Stiles was a little thirsty. He thought Derek might be too. And the night was getting a little cool.

A few minutes later (having committed the casual sin of microwaving the water until it started to boil), Stiles returned to the hood with two mugs of Chamomile tea.

Derek still didn’t really look at him, but he did accept the mug, sitting up just a bit, and holding it with both hands, clearly taking some enjoyment from the heat.

Stiles tried to put a teensy bit more space between them, but Derek didn’t seem to care.

And it was Derek who finally broke their silence. Stiles was counting that as a win.

“You don’t have to be around me, just because we’re soulmates.”

Stiles paused, mug halfway to his mouth.

“Uh. Okay.”

He waited for something more, but nothing seemed forthcoming.

“Are you… do you want to explain that further? Or just, is that…?”

Derek scowled, still looking out over the trees.

Stiles sighed.

“Okay, so, how long have you known?”

Derek shrugged one shoulder.

“Since we met?”

Derek stared and was quiet.

“Okay, I kind of wondered, but I wasn’t sure. Coincidence, and all that.”

Derek frowned a little.

“I. I think I felt it when… when you guys met… when Scott was bitten.”

Oh.

“Oh. Huh. Well, introduction to the supernatural and all that. I suppose it counted as an Important Day. Night. Time. Nighttime.”

Derek scowled again.

“I can Hear the Capital Letters when you say it that way.”

Stiles grinned a little.

“You were Meant To.”

Derek took a grumpy sip of tea.

“Okay, so, we’re soulmates and stuff… and you don’t want me to, what, be around?”

Derek finally looked at him, straight on.

Actually, as close as they were on the hood, it was pretty intense. And sort of intimate. Stiles hoped his body wouldn’t do anything embarrassing, at least until such a time as they were both on the same page.

“No. Of course not. I… It’s- We’re dangerous, Stiles. And tonight proved that.” Derek looked away again. “And if you were smart, you would leave and stay away.”

Stiles nodded, pleased to have the whole stupid argument out.

“Conveniently for you, I am well-known to not be very cautious, and to be arrogant to the point of cat-killing-obstinacy. So, Here I am, and I don’t intend to go anywhere.”

“Stiles!” Derek actually sat up and pulled back, clearly ready to take off, ‘save’ Stiles that way. “You have no idea! No idea how close everyone came to dying tonight. Or getting turned! And how would you dad handle it! You’re not safe around-”

Stiles reached out, took Derek’s hand. It was shaking.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you had to do that tonight, to protect us. I’m so sorry, Derek.”

Derek froze, clenched his jaw, angrily, visibly, forced back his grief.

“It wasn’t-”

But he couldn’t finish the phrase.

He looked away, and Stiles heard his breathing go labored again.

He ached, wanting Derek to be able to just let go.

And then Derek did. Stiles felt the patter against his hand, where saltwater had met metal, and he /felt/ Derek give into it.

Let himself cry it out.

He was still pretty silent, mostly only his ragged breathing tipping his hand, but when stiles shifted to pull him back against the glass again, to take both of their mugs in his left hand, and pull Derek into him with his right…

Derek came easily.

—

Derek was asleep, and Stiles was almost there, idly, muzzily wondering if he should deliberately drop the mugs before he poured them on his lap, when someone took them from him.

He blinked his eyes open to find Laura, tear tracks on her own face, genuine smile crooking her mouth.

“Don’t let him keep you here all night,” She whispered, and then disappeared into the motel.

Derek didn’t so much as twitch, completely relaxed (and heavy! And warm!).

Stiles yawned a little and let his eyes fall closed again. He’d totally move them inside. In a minute.

 

fin

**Author's Note:**

> More of this nonsense, kinda, in the very very rough headcanon I added to this "series".
> 
> Also, title is a line from Lighthouse's song "storm", Kinda lame, but totally stuck in my head the Entire Time I worked on this. XD


End file.
